WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- Growing numbers of people think the U.S. is making progress in Iraq and will eventually be able to claim some success there, a poll showed Tuesday in a sign the politics of the war could become more complicated for Democrats.

With diminishing U.S. and Iraqi casualties and the start of modest troop withdrawals, the public's mood seems to have brightened a bit, the Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed. That is a rarity in what has been a relentlessly unpopular war.

"I still have hopes the people in Iraq will appreciate us being there," said Daniel Laird, 30, a firefighter from Yuba City, Calif., who leans Republican and was questioned in the survey. "It just seems like we are making a difference."(Emphasis added). . . .

Over a million dead Iraqis and we're making progress? What a load of crap.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

the real likely reason it's kinda quiet with the faux appearence of progress is probably due to the fact that the sinnis, shiites, and kurds want nothing more than for us to get OUT of THIER country. they've seen that we won't leave while they are warring among themselves in an escalation of a civil war. i'm betting that they've gotten together behind the backs of the bushicons and likely made some sort of agreement to let things die down for a while. then after the bushicons make it appear that thier bullshit has worked they can then save face by declaring victory and puling our troops out.

then i would guess that within 6 mos to a year they will again resume the all out civil war that they wish to use to settle old scores tht have dated back in time for centuries.

They are called CLCs: Concerned Local Citizens. Most of them are Sunni militants. All of them are getting paid $10 a day by the U.S. military to point their guns the other way....Concerned Local Citizens is the military euphemism for individuals who are paid by the military to not cause trouble. Whole groups of insurgents, including fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq, are converted to temporary allies through this program, and it dates from June 2007, just when the violence was starting to ease....But how long can it last? Relationships based on bribery can be tenuous; but it can also be a short philosophical step from bribery to employment. I don't know enough about the cultural mindset on bribery among the Iraqi peoples to say.

It could simply be that our military gave exhausted insurgents a chance to rest and recoup on our dime, and in another month or so the fighting will flare up again. It is certain that the men being paid are no friendlier to the U.S. presence in Iraq than they ever were. But six months is a long time; long enough, perhaps, to develop a lifestyle and to get used to watching more often than shooting....

Though McCaffrey can be seen as a "believer" in the surge, he can also be seen to have said that --

Quote:

... that a surge of 30,000 additional troops into a country of 30 million could never have enough of an impact alone to turn things around.

NPR also mentions the cease-fire and the CLC's. Of McCaffrey and the CLC's:

Quote:

McCaffrey just got back from a five-day trip to Iraq where, he says, he "went to a couple of these CLCs, you know, five awkward-looking guys with their own AKs standing at a road junction with two magazines of ammunition — and they're there as early warning to protect their families in that village. I think that that's good."

We seem to be dispensing CLC money at a clip of $10 a day for some 70,000 former insurgents -- a quarter billion a year.

McCaffrey thinks the CLC's are gamble worth taking. MacGregor takes a different side.

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It's a controversial strategy, and Macgregor warns that it's creating a parallel military force in Iraq that is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

"We need to understand that buying off your enemy is a good short-term solution to gain a respite from violence," he says, "but it's not a long-term solution to creating a legitimate political order inside a country that, quite frankly, is recovering from the worst sort of civil war."

That civil war has subsided, for now. It's diminished because of massive, internal migration, a movement of populations that has created de-facto ethnic cantons.

"Segregation works is effectively what the U.S. military is telling you," Macgregor says. "We have facilitated, whether on purpose or inadvertently, the division of the country. We are capitalizing on that now, and we are creating new militias out of Sunni insurgents. We're calling them concerned citizens and guardians. These people are not our friends, they do not like us, they do not want us in the country. Their goal is unchanged."

Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran and a former administration adviser, articulates a view that is privately shared by several former and current officers. It's not that they believe the plan isn't working. It's that they see it as a dangerous one with potentially destructive consequences.

(CBS) Most Americans continue to want troops to start coming home from Iraq, and most say the plan President Bush announced last week for troop reductions doesn't go far enough, according to a CBS News poll released Monday.

While the president spoke of a long-term commitment to Iraq in his nationally televised address, a time frame longer than two years is not acceptable to most Americans. Still, most of those polled expect large numbers of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for many years to come.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans say that U.S. troop levels in Iraq should either be reduced or that all troops should be removed - similar numbers to those before Mr. Bush's speech....

But of course, our "deaf to wants of Americans" President never listens to polls.